7 ms·

With 4.0 getting more and more advanced features [0] and Unity merging with an Ad company [1], Godot is looking like it could be an attractive proposition for a

by Zhyl 4y ago

With 4.0 getting more and more advanced features [0] and Unity merging with an Ad company [1], Godot is looking like it could be an attractive proposition for a lot of Unity shops. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32003065 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32003065 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32081051 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32081051

bluefirebrand 4y ago
It's definitely Godot's opportunity to drive a lot of adoption, I'm seeing a ton of disgust from a lot of indie devs I follow, and looking for alternatives to Unity now.
spywaregorilla 4y ago
Unity is already an ad company
eropple 4y ago
Godot is really cool, but a clear and publicly delineated path to console distribution (and not "go talk to these guys", as they currently do) is going to be necessary to get material interest out of most of the gamedev space.
- to-too-two 4y ago
  I'd love official console support but it's not possible being open-source. Porting it yourself is an option, but not many will be inclined to do that and would have to opt for paying a third-party to do so.
  - TulliusCicero 4y ago
    Couldn't you just have a bridge library of some sort that's not open source and contains only the console-specific code?
    - to-too-two 4y ago
      From the official Godot docs: The reason other consoles are not officially supported are: - To develop for consoles, one must be licensed as a company. As an open source project, Godot does not have such a legal figure. - Console SDKs are secret and covered by non-disclosure agreements. Even if we could get access to them, we could not publish the platform-specific code under an open source license. - Consoles require specialized hardware to develop for, so regular individuals can't create games for them anyway. Source: https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/tutorials/platform/consoles.html https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/tutorials/platform/co...
      - TulliusCicero 4y ago
        1. This doesn't seem like a big deal. I'm sure there's some legal-fu you could do here to have a 'company' that's the primary contributor to Godot. Wikipedia has a company of some sort, does it not? And Mozilla's a company. 2. So what? Yes, the console-specific stuff has to be kept secret, that sucks, but it's better than not having support for consoles at all. 3. Okay? Godot isn't just being used by "regular individuals", whatever that means, it's being used by people who want to make games and then sell them -- including, yes, companies -- and those people want to be able to publish games to consoles. That last one is just bizarre. Who do they think their userbase is, exactly? "People who want to make games for PC and mobile but have zero interest in any consoles ever"?
        Aeolun 4y ago
        > People who want to make games for PC and mobile but have zero interest in any consoles ever I don’t understand why you are surprised by this? By your own admission, nobody that wants to develop for consoles would use Godot, so logically, their entire userbase are people that don’t want to do that.
        TulliusCicero 4y ago
        Can't tell if serious or satire. There are absolutely people interested in using Godot as a game engine, including using it to make games for consoles. But many don't, because porting to consoles is painful and expensive, apparently involving third parties as a general rule. Obviously people for whom porting to consoles is a high priority are unlikely to choose Godot right this second, but we're talking about potential users as well, not just the current exact userbase.
- wly_cdgr 4y ago
  Yes. This is the main and only major thing that is holding Godot back from mass indie adoption. I would choose GMS2 or Unity over Godot for a 2D commercial indie project even though GML is worthless on a resume and Unity has all the Unity problems, because they build to all the consoles. Or Defold, since it is really nice and at least can target Switch. And I would choose Unreal or Unity or maybe even Cocos Creator (which recently added Switch support) for a 3D project for the same reason. If you want mass adoption, you need to make it financially viable for commercial indies to use your engine, and good luck convincing those people if they know they need to hire a 3rd party company to port to consoles. Since Godot can't really go the console route, though, they basically need to do the work of figuring out how their users can make enough money on just web, mobile, and/or desktop, and then articulate and successfully sell that solution to them. Steam Deck could help for sure, but it's a big ask
  - TulliusCicero 4y ago
    > Since Godot can't really go the console route Wait, why not? I thought it was a deliberate choice on the devs' part not to prioritize native support for consoles, not something that's actually impossible (since obviously other third party engines do it).
    - skneko 4y ago
      As explained in [0]: - To develop for consoles, one must be licensed as a company. As an open source project, Godot does not have such a legal figure. - Console SDKs are secret and covered by non-disclosure agreements. Even if we could get access to them, we could not publish the platform-specific code under an open source license. [0] https://github.com/godotengine/godot-docs/blob/master/tutorials/platform/consoles.rst https://github.com/godotengine/godot-docs/blob/master/tutori...
      - eropple 4y ago
        MonoGame gets around it by having core team members that grant access to private trees for approved developers. It's not open source, but it's available.
- remram 4y ago
  The consoles make this explicitly incompatible with open source though. That could possibly be a separate entity I suppose, or hopefully if Godot becomes big enough the consoles could arrange something.
  - remram 4y ago
    Seems like they might be reading HN, posted yesterday: Godot and consoles, all you need to know https://godotengine.org/article/godot-consoles-all-you-need-know https://godotengine.org/article/godot-consoles-all-you-need-... (discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32119337 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32119337)
- Aeolun 4y ago
  I don’t think that’s necessary at all, since it’d take away from core Godot development.
- Mikeb85 4y ago
  Why? It's dependency-free C++. It's easy to port.
- juanuys 4y ago
  This just published since your comment: https://godotengine.org/article/godot-consoles-all-you-need-know https://godotengine.org/article/godot-consoles-all-you-need-...
Thaxll 4y ago
Godot is an amateur project compared to Unity, it's not even close. What game actually shipped on Godot? I can't cite a single major game on it. https://godotengine.org/showcase https://godotengine.org/showcase Looking at any of thoses games looks bad tbh it's like weekend project / low indie games.
- carbadtraingood 4y ago
  Sonic Colors remaster, iirc? The games in that showcase look pretty decent to me? Plenty of games I play look like that, lol.
  - idle_zealot 4y ago
    If I'm remembering correctly the new UI elements in the remaster were done in Godot, but the actual game was not. The new Godot menus are slow and unresponsive, so Colors isn't a great showcase for Godot.
- bogwog 4y ago
  > weekend project If Godot lets you make games like that in a weekend, then it's lightyears ahead of Unity.
  - drusepth 4y ago
    FWIW, I'd bet I could replicate many of these games sans release polish in a weekend in Unity solely because of their expansive asset store. Building them from scratch would take longer, but not that much longer. If Godot had even the beginning of an asset store, it'd be way more appealing to devs like myself migrating away from Unity. Especially with Unreal's recent megascans and Quixel integrations making their asset store look inspiring, I can't imagine many Unity studios (who, IME, primarily focus on rapid development and tooling over asset work) will be drawn to Godot. Obviously context is important, though: the asset store isn't the end-all reason people use Unity and rarely the reason a studio chooses the engine, but it is still a big factor for both groups. Other factors will apply, YMMV, etc.
  - 4y ago

by Zhyl 4y ago

bluefirebrand 4y ago

It's definitely Godot's opportunity to drive a lot of adoption, I'm seeing a ton of disgust from a lot of indie devs I follow, and looking for alternatives to Unity now.

spywaregorilla 4y ago

Unity is already an ad company

eropple 4y ago

Godot is really cool, but a clear and publicly delineated path to console distribution (and not "go talk to these guys", as they currently do) is going to be necessary to get material interest out of most of the gamedev space.

to-too-two 4y ago
I'd love official console support but it's not possible being open-source. Porting it yourself is an option, but not many will be inclined to do that and would have to opt for paying a third-party to do so.
- TulliusCicero 4y ago
  Couldn't you just have a bridge library of some sort that's not open source and contains only the console-specific code?
  - to-too-two 4y ago
    From the official Godot docs: The reason other consoles are not officially supported are: - To develop for consoles, one must be licensed as a company. As an open source project, Godot does not have such a legal figure. - Console SDKs are secret and covered by non-disclosure agreements. Even if we could get access to them, we could not publish the platform-specific code under an open source license. - Consoles require specialized hardware to develop for, so regular individuals can't create games for them anyway. Source: https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/tutorials/platform/consoles.html https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/tutorials/platform/co...
    - TulliusCicero 4y ago
      1. This doesn't seem like a big deal. I'm sure there's some legal-fu you could do here to have a 'company' that's the primary contributor to Godot. Wikipedia has a company of some sort, does it not? And Mozilla's a company. 2. So what? Yes, the console-specific stuff has to be kept secret, that sucks, but it's better than not having support for consoles at all. 3. Okay? Godot isn't just being used by "regular individuals", whatever that means, it's being used by people who want to make games and then sell them -- including, yes, companies -- and those people want to be able to publish games to consoles. That last one is just bizarre. Who do they think their userbase is, exactly? "People who want to make games for PC and mobile but have zero interest in any consoles ever"?
      - Aeolun 4y ago
        > People who want to make games for PC and mobile but have zero interest in any consoles ever I don’t understand why you are surprised by this? By your own admission, nobody that wants to develop for consoles would use Godot, so logically, their entire userbase are people that don’t want to do that.
        TulliusCicero 4y ago
        Can't tell if serious or satire. There are absolutely people interested in using Godot as a game engine, including using it to make games for consoles. But many don't, because porting to consoles is painful and expensive, apparently involving third parties as a general rule. Obviously people for whom porting to consoles is a high priority are unlikely to choose Godot right this second, but we're talking about potential users as well, not just the current exact userbase.
wly_cdgr 4y ago
Yes. This is the main and only major thing that is holding Godot back from mass indie adoption. I would choose GMS2 or Unity over Godot for a 2D commercial indie project even though GML is worthless on a resume and Unity has all the Unity problems, because they build to all the consoles. Or Defold, since it is really nice and at least can target Switch. And I would choose Unreal or Unity or maybe even Cocos Creator (which recently added Switch support) for a 3D project for the same reason. If you want mass adoption, you need to make it financially viable for commercial indies to use your engine, and good luck convincing those people if they know they need to hire a 3rd party company to port to consoles. Since Godot can't really go the console route, though, they basically need to do the work of figuring out how their users can make enough money on just web, mobile, and/or desktop, and then articulate and successfully sell that solution to them. Steam Deck could help for sure, but it's a big ask
- TulliusCicero 4y ago
  > Since Godot can't really go the console route Wait, why not? I thought it was a deliberate choice on the devs' part not to prioritize native support for consoles, not something that's actually impossible (since obviously other third party engines do it).
  - skneko 4y ago
    As explained in [0]: - To develop for consoles, one must be licensed as a company. As an open source project, Godot does not have such a legal figure. - Console SDKs are secret and covered by non-disclosure agreements. Even if we could get access to them, we could not publish the platform-specific code under an open source license. [0] https://github.com/godotengine/godot-docs/blob/master/tutorials/platform/consoles.rst https://github.com/godotengine/godot-docs/blob/master/tutori...
    - eropple 4y ago
      MonoGame gets around it by having core team members that grant access to private trees for approved developers. It's not open source, but it's available.
remram 4y ago
The consoles make this explicitly incompatible with open source though. That could possibly be a separate entity I suppose, or hopefully if Godot becomes big enough the consoles could arrange something.
- remram 4y ago
  Seems like they might be reading HN, posted yesterday: Godot and consoles, all you need to know https://godotengine.org/article/godot-consoles-all-you-need-know https://godotengine.org/article/godot-consoles-all-you-need-... (discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32119337 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32119337)
Aeolun 4y ago
I don’t think that’s necessary at all, since it’d take away from core Godot development.
Mikeb85 4y ago
Why? It's dependency-free C++. It's easy to port.
juanuys 4y ago
This just published since your comment: https://godotengine.org/article/godot-consoles-all-you-need-know https://godotengine.org/article/godot-consoles-all-you-need-...

Thaxll 4y ago

Godot is an amateur project compared to Unity, it's not even close. What game actually shipped on Godot? I can't cite a single major game on it. https://godotengine.org/showcase https://godotengine.org/showcase Looking at any of thoses games looks bad tbh it's like weekend project / low indie games.

carbadtraingood 4y ago
Sonic Colors remaster, iirc? The games in that showcase look pretty decent to me? Plenty of games I play look like that, lol.
- idle_zealot 4y ago
  If I'm remembering correctly the new UI elements in the remaster were done in Godot, but the actual game was not. The new Godot menus are slow and unresponsive, so Colors isn't a great showcase for Godot.
bogwog 4y ago
> weekend project If Godot lets you make games like that in a weekend, then it's lightyears ahead of Unity.
- drusepth 4y ago
  FWIW, I'd bet I could replicate many of these games sans release polish in a weekend in Unity solely because of their expansive asset store. Building them from scratch would take longer, but not that much longer. If Godot had even the beginning of an asset store, it'd be way more appealing to devs like myself migrating away from Unity. Especially with Unreal's recent megascans and Quixel integrations making their asset store look inspiring, I can't imagine many Unity studios (who, IME, primarily focus on rapid development and tooling over asset work) will be drawn to Godot. Obviously context is important, though: the asset store isn't the end-all reason people use Unity and rarely the reason a studio chooses the engine, but it is still a big factor for both groups. Other factors will apply, YMMV, etc.
- 4y ago